


What a Waste to be so Alone

by Obsidian_Bandit



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt, I suppose?, Isolation, Lonely Avatar Martin Blackwood, Martin Blackwood Feels Lonely, Martin Blackwood’s Childhood, No comfort here folks, Self-Reflection, There’s also kind of jonmartin, its mostly just Martin being angsty about Jon tho, season 1 through 4 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29804040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obsidian_Bandit/pseuds/Obsidian_Bandit
Summary: Martin joining The Lonely probably shouldn’t have been a surprise to him or anyone else for that matter. For as long as he could remember he had felt alone in one way or another.Or: a large reflection of Martin’s life leading up to him joining The Lonely, and how it had always had some hold on him.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Kudos: 2





	What a Waste to be so Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Waste by Oh Wonder(there’s an amazing Jonmartin animatic with that song btw you should totally watch it if you haven’t)  
> Sorry if I got any timeline stuff mixed up, after binging the whole of season 1-4 in a week the seasons sort of blended together,,,  
> Enjoy your Martin Blackwood angst.

Martin joining The Lonely probably shouldn’t have been a surprise to him or anyone else for that matter. For as long as he could remember he had felt alone in one way or another.

As a child, he had often been left to his own devices, his father “busy”, and his mother trying to fill her time with things to distract her from truths she could only hide from for so long, and one of those truths was Martin. He hadn’t really  _ felt  _ lonely back then, or at least he hadn’t thought about it that much. Without much of a vocabulary he had trouble putting names to most of his feelings, so he usually just accepted that he felt a certain way and moved on.

Of course, he grew up fast. Probably too fast. His father left, and Martin found that the years since his departure had made his face hazy in his mind, a distant memory of a man who had apparently been important to him. His mother tried, she really did, and in retrospect, Martin thinks she did pretty damn well considering what she was going through, but at the time, when Martin was barely 8, he could not comprehend what was happening beyond his mom was alone and so he had to take care of her. Which only drove her further away in the end because of a face he had not known he’d worn.

In his teen years, he did ok, smiled a lot, and was genuinely happy most of the time, had a few good friends, but they only hung out every so often outside of school. Martin was alone a lot, with a good chunk of free time, so to fill the time he read poems. They made him feel happy. Not less alone necessarily, but less dissatisfied with his situation. Less helpless. Then he dropped out of school to help his mother and left those friends behind.

He started in research before he joined the Archives, and most of that time was spent scrambling and drowning in his own inability to understand most of what was being said, done, and expected of him. But he knew he had to help his mom so he kept going. This meant very little time to get to know his coworkers, and even less for after-work excursions, but he consoled himself with the fact that as long as he had his mother, even she didn’t exactly want  _ him _ , he would be ok.

When he first joined the Archival team he had still been way out of his depth and still spent more time trying to make up for the lies on his CV than making friends, but eventually, he got more settled. Much more settled than he ever managed in Research. Tim and Sasha had been nice, Martin would’ve even considered them good friends; they spent time together outside of work, and even in work they all joked and helped each other out. But there was clearly something going on between the two of them that left Martin feeling distant, and Jon was always either completely ignoring him or chewing him out for some small mistake that apparently made his entire day’s work null and void.

Then they found out Sasha had died a year prior and  _ something  _ else had stolen her place, and then Jon ran away after being convicted of murder. Tim shut everyone out, most of all Martin while Jon was missing. Then Jon came back, and he was… better? To a degree. Nicer, Martin supposed, but that was probably just because he was less paranoid. And then even more people got caught up in their mess, but they weren’t the best company. Basira was too caught up in reading or chewing out Jon, Melanie was too busy trying to murder Elias, and Daisy was too busy being Elias’ hunting dog. And of course, Jon was still as unreachable as ever, but Martin hadn’t honestly expected any better.

Then they tried to be heroes. They did stop the Unknowing, and they did lock Elias up. But Tim was dead, Jon was in a “coma” in which  _ he  _ was practically dead as well, Martins mother died somewhere along the way, sometime when Martin was too busy trying to deal with everything else going on, everything else he’d lost. Basira, Melanie, and Daisy stuck together, they became close, and the last thing Martin had wanted to do was intrude on that. 

Peter hadn’t tricked him, not really. For one The Lonely had always had a bit of a grip on Martin, and for second though Martin had lied on his CV he was smart enough to know what Peter wanted with him in the first place, and for third Martin could see through Peters talk of him being a hero, he was no hero, he never would be. He didn’t know about the bet, but he did know that Peter had some big endgame that would involve his isolation, and that probably also involved Elias, the two seemed connected in a way Martin doubted he’d ever fully understand.

At first, he had wanted to decline, to act high and mighty, to say he had a life worth living with friends by his side. But then the death of his mom, of Tim, of Sasha flashed into his mind. He thought of Jon, of how the other man had never paid half a mind to him and was now either going to die or become a monster, consumed by the Eye, losing all semblance of the humanity he had once coveted. He thought of Basira, trying to hold them together, keep them from snapping and losing hope. He thought of Melanie, rude and brash most of the time, only ever looking at Martin to either glare or pity him these days. He thought of Daisy, how she had let the Hunt consume her, but how she’d used that for  _ good _ .

In the end, he knew they didn’t actually need him: either Jon would come back and run the show, lead them to save the world again or something along those lines, or he wouldn’t and Basira would be in charge of keeping the peace until some other dread fear god or whatever decided they wanted to take their shot at stirring up some chaos. No matter what happened he wouldn’t be a vital part of either of their plans, hell, during the last one all he’d done was burn old statements and cry the second Elias told him a truth he had already suspected deep down.

So why not?

Peter didn’t look surprised, or cocky, or happy, or satisfied, or anything along those lines. Just vaguely pitying, and overall like he’d expected nothing else. Martin couldn’t blame him, it wasn’t like Martin had any other choices lined up. Not a whole lot for him to do to be useful besides be alone.

Jon came back eventually, no longer human deep down, but he still looked human enough. It didn’t really change what Martin had to do, gave him more motivation perhaps, but the cold of the Lonely was already starting to seep in and take hold, tendrils of loneliness making their homes in his body and gripping him tight, Martin was surprised by how strangely familiar they felt. Part of him wanted to reach out to Jon, but a greater part had already resigned himself to his fate of being alone.

Because honestly, he always had been.

**Author's Note:**

> Dontcha just love reading characters with sad childhoods?


End file.
